debian

Many of the core Fedora / Redhat commands and configuration files covered in this chapter can be used in Debian based operating systems, but there are some key differences.

The /etc/network/interfaces File

The main network configuration file is the /etc/network/interfaces file in which all the network interface parameters are defined. The file is divided into stanzas:

The auto Stanza

The auto stanza defines the interfaces that should be automatically initialized when the system boots up.

The mapping Stanza

This stanza maps configuration parameters for an interface depending on the output of a script. For example, on booting the script could prompt you as to whether your laptop Linux system is at home or work with the mapping statement using the answer to configure the appropriate IP address.

By default the much simpler hotplug system is used which assumes that the interfaces will have only one purpose. Typical hotplug configurations simply assign each physical interface with a matching logical interface name (nick name).

mapping hotplug
        script grep
        map eth0 eth0
        map eth1